Purple-crowned Fairy Wren

This is the male in all its breeding spendour. These birds are restricted to a small area in the far north of Australia and inhabit the pandanus lined edges of creeks. They are desperately hard to get a clean shot of because they are always in complex low vegetation. Last week I spent maybe 10 hours over a few days with a pair that were building a nest and this was the cleanest shot of the male that I got that also showed the subtle plumage detail. The bird was about 2m from me and the image is full frame vertically and cropped a bit at the edges. I needed to remove a distracting bg twig that passed behind the beak and I lowered the edge of the pandanus leaf to show more of the foot. Also toned the bg down a bit.

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/h...Male060110.jpg

Taken at Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park in far north-western Queensland.

50D 100-400 @ 400 1/100 f6.3 0ev iso400 430EXII -1ev diffuse HH

Sounds like a difficult subject. Lots to say here. First off congrats on getting something decent. I do like the raised tail. It is unfortunate that the bird was looking up as the head is tilted away from you and I believe that this increased the amount of sky reflection in the eye. A bit of work on the purple crown, maybe some de-saturation and a Linear Burn might make it look a bit richer.

Lastly, though this near-square image is within BPN size limits--thanks for that--for me, it is simply too big for convenient viewing.

Thanks Artie. About the image size- a quick and easy trick in IE at least is to hold down CTRL and scroll the mouse wheel back for smaller and forward for larger. Sorry if I'm telling you something that you already knew!

Also, the raised tail is a characteristic of all Australian Fairy Wrens- it only drops when they are having a snooze.

Yes, I agree. Good for you to get the nice clean shot. It is a very interesting bird and shows the habitat well. I like that the photo shows off the unigue colouring of the bird well. Dave

TO me only that intersecting green leaf is the bother, but these little fellas are tough for the best of us as well. Especially when not being set-up, but trying to capture in real life as you had nicely done so here.

HA is not that bad, but that Artie bloke is a pretty tough cookie on everyone. ;) Maybe try to sharpen the bill a little more?